New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Poster Hits Too Close To 9/11 For Many

There are certain movies that seem to court controversy. They find a polarizing subject, and they release marketing materials in order to generate headlines. Stirring the pot is the basic marketing strategy. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not one of those movies. In fact, the flick’s basic existence is likely owed to good vibes and the marketing power of nostalgia. Unfortunately, controversy has still followed the movie at every turn, and now, thanks to an ill-advised marketing choice, the headlines are continuing.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is set to be released on August 8th in the United States. It will follow a little more than a month later in Australia. More specifically, it will follow on September 11th, a date which holds great significance as a result of the terrorist attacks on New York City. Whoever put together the marketing materials, however, didn’t necessarily make that connection, and as a result, the officially released poster contained that date and a large picture of the Turtles jumping off a burning building in NYC.

As soon as Paramount Pictures realized what kind of connection fans were drawing, the poster was immediately pulled. Headlines alerting everyone else to the controversy started popping up immediately. Given the weird news-ish quality of what happened, that trajectory is understandable, but it’s also important to take a step back here and give the studio the benefit of the doubt. There is no way they would ever want to draw a parallel between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and 9/11, and given Australians don’t have that same knee-jerk reaction to that date, it’s easy to see how it got approved in the first place.

While people love the idea of getting more of something they loved during childhood, most are naturally suspicious of alterations and new ideas. Consequently, TMNT brewed a mini-controversy when producers announced the characters are going to be aliens in the upcoming installment. That, coupled with rumors of reshoots, have generated a lot of negativity. Hopefully, there really is something special bubbling in the green ooze, though, because I think I speak for most people who grew up during the 1980s and 1990s in saying another adventure with Leonardo and Shredder could potentially be a great time.